


Death Do Us Part

by straytiny_n_ctzen



Series: House of the Undead [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ghosts, Ghouls, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Magic, Mentioned Kim Jungwoo (NCT), Mentioned Qian Kun, Mentioned Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas, Mentioned Zhong Chen Le, Multi, Necromancy, Not Really Character Death, Unspecified Setting, Vampires, Witches, fluff at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 17:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18782710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straytiny_n_ctzen/pseuds/straytiny_n_ctzen
Summary: Yuta finds a way to be with his boyfriends.





	Death Do Us Part

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back with another spinoff to the fic I have not yet finished writing!  
> This is a little more angsty and plot driven than the KunLe things but I hope y'all like it nonetheless. I really worked hard on this.

“Johnny! Get away from them!” Yuta sprinted into the room where the ghoul stood hunched over the two corpses, his face dangerously close to the flesh. 

Johnny snapped his orange eyes up at the frantic witch and his naturally pouty lips became just a tad more prominent. “But I’m hungry,” he whined. Nonetheless he stepped away from the bodies on the metal table.

“Not my problem. You’re not going to eat my boyfriends’ bodies. Now shoo before you snap and I need to wait for new reincarnations.” He may have said it in a joking manner, but  
Johnny knew that Yuta was being serious. The witch was always serious when it came to his boyfriends.

The ghoul huffed and left the room, mumbling something about Yuta really not having a heart.

Yuta sighed and adjusted his pointy hat before walking over to the corpses. He brushed the hair from one’s face and caressed the other’s cheek. “Soon I can hold you, my loves.”

 

For the next ten days Yuta spent his time either with Taeil and Sicheng or tending to their new bodies.

He would have preferred it if he could do both at the same time, but that was not the case; hasn’t been for years now. Ten and Jungwoo had made sure of that.

Ghosts cannot control when their forms become more dense and that could cause some issues. It had happened a few times in the early days that Sicheng or Taeil looked around the witches’ workrooms and then suddenly turned more dense. The ghosts had bumped into cabinets and dropped vials, and luckily it hadn’t resulted in something too serious. But Ten and Jungwoo casted a anti-ghost spell on the rooms anyway. Just in case. None of the residents felt comfortable with dying - be it again or not.

Yuta was busy stirring a potion in a big, rusty cauldron when he heard his name being called. He looked up and saw Sicheng standing in the doorway, a little less see-through than usual.

The witch quickly made his way over, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, and he carefully cupped Sicheng’s face in his hands.

His touch was lighter than that of a feather but any more pressure and he would go straight through his boyfriend. “Hi,” he greeted softly, as if he was afraid his voice would shatter Sicheng.

Sicheng placed his hands on top of Yuta’s. “How are things coming along?” He spoke just as quietly, the tiniest smile dancing around his mouth.

“Not as quickly as I would like, but I contacted someone who should be able to help me. The way it goes now I’ll be ready in a week. He’ll be here as well then.” Yuta leaned in to kiss Sicheng’s forehead but all his lips touched was air. The pressure around his hands was gone as well.

He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to ignore the familiar disappointment settling in his chest.

He stepped back. “I’ll go back to work now, okay?”

Sicheng nodded once and smiled so sweetly. “Good luck.”

Yuta tried to smile back but it did nothing to conceal the pain in his eyes.

He worked with his door closed the rest of the day.

 

That last week really messed up Yuta’s sleep schedule as it progressed. He found himself working through the nights and falling asleep at the most random of times and in the most random of places.

The witch woke up from the feeling of someone playing with his fingers. It was somewhere in the afternoon, judging from the light behind his eyelids, and he was certain he did not fall asleep on the couch. Someone must have brought him here.

His fingers twitched as he fully woke up and the other laced theirs together.

Yuta was awake in an instant. His eyes flew open and he immediately drowned in Taeil’s beautiful, solid, brown eyes.

Solid.

Yuta reached out his free hand to touch Taeil’s face. His skin was pale like that of a sickly person and it had the texture of a sponge, but it was the most solid he had been in _years_. Yuta squeezed Taeil’s hand. He wanted to say something - anything - but his throat closed up.

The ghost shushed him. “Don’t cry, love. I wanted to hold you. Go back to sleep, I know you need it. You’ve been working hard lately.”

Yuta nodded and buried his face in Taeil’s shoulder, clinging to him as if his life depended on it.

Taeil rested his head on top of Yuta’s hat and ran his fingers through the hairs on the back of Yuta’s head.

He put the witch in a more comfortable position once he had cried himself back to sleep, but didn’t leave his side.

But slowly Taeil started to fade again, and Sicheng comforted him as he let out his ghostly cries in the attic.

 

The day of the ritual eventually rolled around and to say Yuta was nervous would be an understatement. He was usually quite confident in his abilities, but doubts seemed to worm their way into his mind with such a fragile and important matter at hand. He couldn’t fail this time. Not again.

He was in the midst of checking the stars’ and moon’s position when Mark knocked on the door. “Hyung? There’s someone here to see you? Said his name was… Hen… ri? Hendry?” He shrugged. “Anyway, he’s here for the… thing.”

Mark was the newest addition to their unconventional family, and by now has been living with them for a little over a year. It was clear he was still getting used to all of the undead shenanigans going on, but he tried his best to adjust and the rest could only compliment him on it and help where they could.

Yuta glanced up from his notes. “Great, thanks. I’ll be right downstairs.”

Mark hopped away with an affirmative.

The witch leaned his hands on his desk and let out a breath. “You can do this, Yut,” he told himself. He adjusted his hat, gathered the last of his things, adjusted his hat again, and went downstairs to greet his visitor.

He followed the voices coming from the sitting room and found Ten, Jungwoo, and Kun with a sleeping Chenle in his lap talking to someone he hadn’t seen before. Kun was the first to notice Yuta and silently waved him over.

The foreign witch scrambled up when he noticed Yuta and bowed. "Hi, you must be Yuta. I'm Hendery. I'm looking forward to working with you."

Yuta bowed back. "Yes. It's a pleasure to meet you, and thank you for coming over on such short notice. I'm looking forward to working with you as well."

To be honest Yuta was surprised to see such a young face before him. Physical age was no indication of how old a witch was, but Yuta had still imagined someone in his thirties or forties whenever he heard of this Hendery. Not… someone who looked to be barely of age.

"Shall we get to work then?" Hendery's eyes glinted pink.

Yuta blinked and it was gone. "Uh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, let's."

The two received a chorus of "good luck", and then they moved to the bathroom on the second floor.

"Energy's the strongest here," Yuta said in lieu of explanation as he held the door open.

Hendery nodded and looked around.

The bathroom was fairly spacious, with white and blue tiles covering the floor and walls. A portable table stood in a corner under the shower head, covered in loose papers, books, jars and vials filled with various things.

The most noticeable thing was the two antique bathtubs in the middle of the room. Each tub held a body lying in a deep purple liquid. If you didn't know better you would think they were asleep.

“So you’ve tried this before?”

Yuta froze, but quickly went back to organising his papers. “Once. Didn’t work.”

Hendery nodded and dipped a finger in the purple liquid. He inspected it before wiping it on his robe. “May I see your notes?”

Yuta handed them over without looking.

The foreigner hastily read over the paper. “So what made you want to try again?” He put the paper down and rummaged through some jars and vials strewn around the bathroom, seemingly looking for something.

“They are important to me.” The Japanese witch hopes his voice didn’t sound so watery.

“Ah, I see. Oh!” Hendery triumphantly held up a jar with a light green powder. “Feeding them a spoonful of this will help the soul attach better to the body. Here,” he handed the jar to Yuta, “I’ll start with the ward.”

“Is...” He took the jar. “Will this work today?”

“I think so, yeah. Your notes looked fine; only that was missing,” Hendery indicated the jar with a lift of his chin. “You actually did pretty well, considering your years of practice.”

Yuta frowned. Just how old was Hendery? He may be physically younger than Yuta but that says nothing about how long a witch has been, well, a witch. “Uh, thanks. Also for helping me.”

Hendery waved it away. “I’m always happy to help a colleague out. Besides, I was still indebted to Lucas so this was the perfect opportunity.”

As they talked, Hendery had grabbed a bundle of dried herbs, dipped it in a potion and was now walking around the room. He began to quietly chant a spell under his breath, and  
his eyes glowed up bright pink. The bundle started to smoke a few seconds later and Hendery moved it around so the smoke reached every corner of the room.

Soon there was a thick, grey cloud hanging in the room, making Yuta’s eyes water and his lungs burn with every inhale. However, he blinked the tears away and kneeled down between the two tubs.

He drew intricate runes on the floor with chalk, and then the same on the bodies’ chests and foreheads with eyeliner.

Yuta summoned his dagger again and slashed the palms of his hands. Firstly he drew a circle of blood around the runes on the floor, then he stepped in the circle and carefully placed his hands on the corpses’ chests on top of the runes.

The smoke in the room cleared the moment his hands touched the cold skin.

Yuta looked up in uncertainty and Hendery gave him a nod. He took a breath to calm his nerves and started casting the spell. The words felt familiar and foreign on his tongue. But soon enough his hands started glowing a light green, but it became darker with each word. It meant he did it right.

Yuta closed his eyes.

The liquid in the bathtubs bubbled and smoked lightly as it slowly crept up the bodies in a thicker consistency. It travelled up, eventually covering every single inch of skin, including Yuta’s hands.

He said the final words, inviting the ghosts to host the corpses, and the room turned pitch black as if all the light had been snatched away.

The Japanese witch opened his eyes again and the green light coming from his eyes casted an eerie shadow over his face.

As quickly as the darkness came, it went again. And it took the tar-like substance with it. The purple turned back into liquid, and it splashed everywhere. Back into the tub, on the tiles, soaking Yuta’s clothes and shoes.

His head snapped up, looking at Hendery in alarm. This had not happened the last time he tried this.

Hendery smiled gently. “That is supposed to happen.” His eyes were glowing pink again.

Yuta bit his lip but nodded anyway. Hendery was the more experienced necromancer here. He had to trust his word.

He took a breath and looked back at the corpses. They looked unchanged, not a hair was out of place. The nerves had returned in tenfold and ate away at his insides, as if to rid him of his other organs, too.

“You can finish up now. It’s done.”

Yuta did so and groaned as he got up from his kneeling position, rolling back his sore shoulders. “And now we wait?”

“And now we wait,” Hendery affirmed.

After a few moments Yuta spoke again. “What was that with the potion creeping up the bodies?”

“Ah. It’s an effect from the powder you gave them before. If all went well, the souls should be properly bound now. It can take a few hours before they wake up, though.”

Yuta decided to stay in the bathroom, while Hendery went back downstairs to inform the others and send out a message to his brothers back in China.

 

The wait was okay at first. Yuta had things to do to keep himself occupied, but the real torture began when he was done with everything. Cleaning and organising his stuff took a little over an hour, but who knew how long remained until they woke up. If they woke up.

Nothing else was happening. All was too silent, too still, but Yuta could not bring himself to leave the room to find other things to keep himself busy. What if they woke up right as he was away? He would never forgive himself if he missed that moment.

So he played with the hem of his hat and clothes. He paced the room. He counted the seconds ticking away. He was getting impatient.

Every creak of the old house had him on edge. Every gust of wind caught his attention. Every step outside the door made hope bloom in his chest.

He waited. For a twitch, a sigh, a flutter of the eyelids. For anything.

Eventually he sat down between the tubs again and looked at the corpses one by one. They were the mirror image of Taeil and Sicheng’s ghostly silhouettes.

Yuta had been waiting for this for along time. It was only every few generations that a baby who looked exactly like their ancestor was born. The necromancer had made the necessary calculations beforehand, and his job in the morgue made it easier to keep track of the deceased, enabling him to do what he has just finished.

He thought of all of the moments he shared with his boyfriends. The tangible and not. Those of the latter greatly outweighed the former.

An awful, watery cough brought Yuta back from his reverie.

He scrambled forward to help Taeil sit upright, pounding on his back. Taeil coughed up breath after breath of sickly green liquid, clinging desperately to Yuta’s shirt.  
He was gasping heavily when his lungs were emptied, trying to get enough breath, but Yuta didn’t dare to move or make a sound.

It… it actually worked?

Taeil turned to the witch and his eyes widened in alarm. “Hey, hey, why are you crying? Don’t cry, love.” He loosened a hand from Yuta’s shirt and wiped away the tears.

“It worked…” Yuta carefully cupped Taeil’s cheeks, as if he was afraid he would go through him again. “I can _feel_ you.” He looked him over while stroking Taeil’s face, and ended up gazing into his brown eyes. They had green flecks. “It worked,” his voice broke on the last syllable.

But the sounds of gagging pierced their little moment like a stake pierces a vampire.

Yuta whipped his head around fast enough for any human to have gotten a whiplash.

Sicheng.

He was failing his arms, clawing at his throat, trying to gasp for air but all that came out were gurgles. His lungs were full of that green liquid but it was stuck.

Yuta launched himself at Sicheng and pounded on his back. Panicking, he called for help with his magic. The bones in the walls of the house began to rattle, alerting the others, while he still tried his best to get Sicheng to puke up the liquid.

Hurried footsteps came up the stairs and the door flew open, revealing a serious Hendery and a frightened Ten.

It took Hendery one glance at Sicheng to tell what was happening. “His body is rejecting the magic but the soul is holding on.” He beckoned Ten over to stand beside the tub.

Yuta moved out of the way, clinging to Taeil who tried his best to calm him down. But maybe Taeil also tried to calm himself down.

Ten carefully stepped closer, unsure what to do, and worried sick about his friend. But Hendery read him like an open book and instructed him on what to do. “There’s no saving him if he dies now.”

Hendery held Sicheng down as Ten extracted the green from his lungs. His eyes and hands glowed an icy blue as he worked as fast as he could. Sicheng couldn’t die.

It seemed to take eons until the glow from Ten faded and he hunched over to catch his breath. The lungs were emptied now. Ten glanced up but the sight made him want to throw up, despite everything he has seen in his lifetime.

Sicheng was not breathing.

Hendery took a step back, face grim.

He lay slumped in the bathtub, chest as still as before. Soulless.

Yuta pulled himself free from Taeil’s hold and reached out to Sicheng. “No, no, no, no. Sicheng? Winko?” He cupped his pale face. “Sicheng, baby, please wake up.” He tilted his face this way and that, only now noticing purple stains on his body that weren’t there before. Yuta looked up at Hendery and Ten. “Why is he not waking up?”

Silence.

Yuta kept staring. His face turned darker with each passing second. “Why is he not waking up?” he repeated more sternly.

More silence.

The house started to shake and Yuta’s eyes radiated a poisonous green.

Taeil tried to pull Yuta back in his arms but the witch wouldn’t budge. He kept staring the other two witches down.

Hendery shook his head. Anyone else would have missed it, but not Yuta. It was a sign he should give up.

He looked back at Sicheng, hopelessness overwhelming him greatly. “Baby… please come back to us.” He stroked Sicheng’s cheek with the utmost care. “Please…”  
He couldn’t hold back the sob coming out. His eyes closed and the leaned his head against the still shoulder. It was too cold for Yuta’s liking.

The house slowly stopped moving, but now it was Yuta who was shaking with suppressed cries instead.

Taeil looked over at the other two witches. Hendery looked regretful, and Ten was trying his best to hold back his tears. Taeil didn’t even notice his own tears quietly dripping down his face. He nodded at them once, ever so slightly, and they got the hint.

The door clicked shut behind them and only Yuta’s cries were heard in the silence.

The newly revived ghost carefully stepped out of the bathtub, and hastily pulled on some clothes, not caring about the fact that his sweatpants immediately got soaked. He kneeled down next to the witch and wrapped his arm around his trembling shoulders. With his free hand he grabbed Sicheng’s hand, intertwining their fingers.

They sat there in silence for minutes on end, each grieving their lost love.

Until Taeil gasped. He felt something move against his hand. The one that held Sicheng’s. He squeezed gently, and he got a twitch in return.

He let out a breath. “Oh my god… Sichengie? Love? Can you hear me?”

Yuta sat up straighter and watched Taeil in confusion.

Then Sicheng let out a pained groan and Yuta’s head snapped around to look at him, holding his breath.

His eyelids fluttered and eventually opened. His eyes darted around the room until they finally landed on his boyfriends. They shone with unshed tears.

Yuta noticed how one eye was coloured a vibrant green, and the other a mix of pink and ice blue. The colours of the witches’ magic.

Sicheng opened his mouth to speak but a cough attack wrecked his body. He doubled over from the force of it, a few tears leaking out as well. He tried again.  
“What happened?” he asked in a small but hoarse voice.

“I got you and Taeil a body.” Yuta could hardly suppress the smile threatening to break out.

Taeil brushed the hair out of Sicheng’s face, smiling gently.

“I feel heavy.”

“I know,” Taeil answered. “I do, as well. But we will get used to it.”

Yuta nodded and looked at them both. His chest filled up with happiness and affection. “Do you want to sleep for a bit?” Now that everything was over he could feel his eyes grow heavy.

Sicheng nodded and Taeil, too.

Yuta smiled at them. He didn’t want to leave their sides but eventually he forced himself to get up and grab a towel and a set of clothes for Sicheng and Taeil.

He dried them both off with the necessary struggle and got them dressed in dry and soft clothes. It felt weird, according to Taeil.

The younger ghost-turned-somewhat-human assured Yuta he could walk on his own, so the witch picked up Sicheng in his arms and lead them to his room.

By the time they reached his room Sicheng was already half asleep in his arms, and he curled up the moment he touched the bed. Yuta climbed over him to settle against the wall, and Taeil lay down on Sicheng’s other side. It didn’t take long for him to start snoring lightly.

Yuta smiled fondly at the sleeping boy, and moved his gaze to Taeil when he felt him grab his hand on top of Sicheng’s hip.

“Thank you, Yu.”

Yuta squeezed his hand. “I love you.”

“And I you.”

They looked at each other for a while, until Yuta fell asleep eventually.

He felt lighter than ever.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on my [tumblr](http://straytiny-n-ctzen.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/straytinynctzen) and don't forget to leave kudos and/or comments!


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